Articles about wealth building, investing, and saving
My friend just made $20K on Micron. Social media is full of people comparing index funds to AI funds over four-week windows. Here's why I'm not changing a thing.
A 46-year-old Tokyo salaryman walks through three stock sales from 2011 that turned into a $200K opportunity cost — and what finally fixed the pattern.
Final installment of my FP cert series. I failed the FP2 written exam once (passed the practical), then passed on retake. Bigger story: every major financial judgment I'd made over 8 years — keeping a mortgage, holding unhedged USD funds — was written into the FP2 textbook as the correct answer.
Eight years of index investing got me to ~$260K. Six weeks of FP3 study showed me that real estate and inheritance tax were total blindspots. Also: Japan's inheritance tax scares people who don't actually need to worry.
I was waking up at 4am to play games. My wife noticed and suggested I take a financial certification instead. I started studying for Japan's FP cert that day. Here's why a contrarian view of 'experience vs credentials' kicked in immediately.
A Japan-resident investor's case for unhedged USD funds: why I chose unhedged over hedged versions (fees + DCA fit), what ¥159 USD/JPY means for my ~$260K portfolio, and why I won't sell or stop contributions even if the yen strengthens.
Can you Side FIRE or Barista FIRE at 50 with $330K in assets? A 46-year-old Japanese salaryman runs every number — asset trajectory, contract income, education costs, pension bridge, drawdown to age 90 — and builds a real, math-backed 3.5-year plan.
1 in 10 Japanese estates now hit inheritance tax — double the rate from a decade ago. A salaryman from a low-income family explains why he supports paying it, while most loudly oppose
What Barista FIRE looks like from inside Japan's salaryman culture: real numbers, real constraints, and why the math surprised me
Japanese variable-rate mortgages have two 'safety' mechanisms that actually hide rate increases behind a fixed payment facade. How they work, and why 80% of Japanese borrowers don't understand what they signed.